#aplanggo

[joeljames007-blog]

altruism

altruism in our society is very hard to come by these days. How often do you see people doing unselfish acts for others without it benefiting them? Even the acts we see now a days that seem so genuine, the person can be doing it for their image or expect something in return. I'm not saying there isn't any altruistic acts that people do out there. Just that most of the time the selflessness we see in others may not be real it could be fake. In cases with celebrities since the media has their eyes on them a lot, when they do something that is kind for the good of humanity it makes their image better. That isn't altruistic. But not all celebrities are like that some are genuinely kind and do it out of the kindness of their heart. Altruism does exist in our society, we just have to tell which acts are and which aren't. 

[tnowinski]

Altruism

Altruism in our society can be nearly impossible to come by. Even a person’s slightest expectation for something in return for doing something good for another person would cause the act to not be altruistic. The majority of people now look for something in return for their good actions. Take GO week for example, when my class was given the opportunity for a reward through grades, there was a substantial amount of participation. Yet, had there been no reward, lots of people probably would not have participated to the extent in which they did, myself being an example.

I also think that many people get caught up in the definition of altruism, preventing them from viewing situations for how selfless they really are. Does it truly matter if a marine who dived on a grenade to save four other people had a small desire for honor, preventing the event from being altruistic? Another case is in anonymous donations, where the simple good feeling someone gets from making a donation prevents that event from being altruistic. While pure altruism may not exist, people are capable of doing good actions with altruistic intentions, and these actions should be viewed for how selfless they are.

[vkhatri-blog]

Altruism

When we talked about altruism in class, I found it hard to disagree with Mr. Kreinbring's conclusion. The only real act of altruism is one where a person ends his or her own life. By doing this, he/she can't really expect anything in return (except maybe the memory). Otherwise, we always expect something in return, even something as small as a good feeling. The most common situation that I face is helping other people with their math homework. Sometimes I do this because the person has helped or because I simply want them to stop bothering me. In the case of the latter, I'm expecting something in return. When in class it was said that the only way to make an act a true act of altruism is by not truly caring about, then you probably just want to get out of the situation. Of course this may not always be the case, but if that is, then it's just like my situation of helping someone so I won't be bothered. It's hard to see any act as a true act of altruism, but it's not wrong to expect something in return.

[j-berg]

Altruism

Altruism is imaginary. For it to exist an action would have to be made with almost no motivation; the only motivation being that it was the “right” thing to do. No one is that unselfish. Every act has a selfish motive, even if it is to feel “happy” with oneself for helping others. The concept of “it was the right thing to do” is corrupt, also. When people say that, it’s to impress others; makes them sound selfless and a “genuine” person. GO week only emphasizes this. Everything we do is to impress other schools, other societies, other classrooms, or other students. We compare ourselves to others, because our goal is to make ourselves look “better” then everyone else, and not to make a positive change. Altruism does not exist, everyone is driven by selfishness.

[nehachintala-blog]

Altruism

I believe Altruism exists. People say it's giving and doing something completely selfless without expecting anything in return. When you're giving, or when you're helping, you're still being selfless. You're not expecting it to affect you in any way. Whether it does, or doesn't, that's a different matter all together. 

Suppose you see someone on the street. A begger perhaps. You give them some money, because it's not like you were going to do anything super important with it anyways. They need it more than you do. You give that homeless man some money. It makes his day. He smiles. Were you expecting a response? Were you getting anything in return? No. Some would argue that the good feelings you get when you know you've made a difference in the world is defeating the purpose of altruism. That true altruism doesn't exist. 

I sincerely believe that helping for the nature of helping, for wanting to make a difference, that's altruism. Feel free to argue me on this. What do you think?

[peaches-andpears]

Altruism

At the beginning of our discussion of altruism in class I believed that there was such a thing as altruism, and that there were many people who truly wanted to do thing selflessly, with out any prize, or reward in return. However as the conversation developed I began to see that although many people seem to have the right intentions, their emotional "drives" to doing something may be to get the satisfaction of others, or themselves. Others may be preforming these acts of altruism for religious reasons, believing that what they do now will grant them something after this life, but they are still expecting something in return for what they have done. I began to realize that there truly is no such thing as altruism, like Mr. Krienbring suggested at the end of class, the only true form of altruism is one that gives up your own life for another.

[ginnyv-blog-blog]

Altruism

Altruism can exist in a variety of cases, but I feel it is absent in just as many cases. I believe people can do a good deed without a sense of altruism. Just because a person feels good after performing a good deed does not make them selfish. If before the deed is performed and a person thinks “I am doing this to get a good feeling and be considered a nice person” would be considered altruism. However, in most cases I like to think that people do the deed for another person. Even if their action was altruistic the fact that they helped another person is still considered a good act. Altruism just makes the action less valuable, but just as helpful.

[erikkoberstein-blog]

Altruism

As we were discussing altruism in class I realized that altruism is not very evident in today’s society. Most times people will only do something because they will receive a reward; however, this is the direct opposite of altruism - an act of selfishness. Talking about it in class brought to my attention that our third hour class was only altruistic to a certain extant. I believe my class still would have done a lot for GO week, but if we had one hundred percent participation at events we got to drop a grade, which in my mind boasted our hunger to win. Since we were able to drop a quiz grade we were not doing it altruistically. Also, my class wanted the pizza party and to win the week so we did whatever we could do to win. Although we did give a ton of items to people in need, doing it with a pizza party or dropping a quiz grade in our mind, it is not altruistic anymore. So, I think altruism isn’t very evident in today’s society because now there is always some sort of reward whether it is a pizza party or dropping a grade.